FLOOD Manager

Making flood model data usable… by anyone

waterRIDE™ FLOOD Manager is a purpose built floodplain management support system. Based on the waterRIDE™ time varying GIS environment, it supports the results of any 1D or 2D flood model. With its intuitive interface, accessing model results has never been easier.

In essence, waterRIDE™ FLOOD Manager’s role is to help in the understanding of flood behaviour (for both technical and non-technical people) by allowing users to “get at” and interrogate their model results, and integrate them with GIS datasets to help determine “what do they mean?”. All this without needing to be a flood modeller, nor have the flood model software available! It is not a flood model itself.

The capabilities of waterRIDE™ FLOOD Manager extend far beyond those of a simple hydraulic model results viewing application. waterRIDE™ FLOOD Manager is designed to enhance the understanding and communication of hydraulic modelling, as well as facilitate decision making by providing targetted flood intelligence through seamless integration of modelling results with GIS datasets.

Flood intelligence is the combination of flood modelling datasets with other, generally GIS based datasets, to create new information that serves the needs of the end user of the model results (ie “what does this flooding data mean to me?”).

Developed by experienced floodplain managers actively practising in the industry, it is designed to be used by hydraulic modellers, flood mitigation engineers, planners, emergency management personnel and flood risk managers, in both government and private enterprises.

Flood hazard (velocity x depth) can be converted to a cadastral format, instantly defining flood hazards for each cadastral lot.

Set up your own flood hazards categories (charts) to provide ultimate flexibility.

Difference Mapping

waterRIDE™ FLOOD Manager can be used to easily produce difference plots. Difference plots can be used to thematically display the difference between two model runs (eg in development impact assessments with ‘before’ and ‘after’ model results, or what is the impact of climate change?).

The model results do not even need to have the same network layout or even be from the same hydraulic model!

Parameter Queries

Full Boolean logic query functionality for your hydraulic results set, at any time step or across the entire time series.

For example, display all points in the floodplain where velocity > 1.0m/s and depth > 1.0m at any stage during the flood.

Execute flexible (user defined) time based queries using any hydraulic parameter to derive time dependent surfaces such as:• time to / duration of (eg time to inundation)
• time to peak
• duration threshold (eg how long is bed shear > specified value, or how long is an area inundated by at least 0.5m of water?)

Combine your GIS datasets with your model results in even more sophisticated ways.

Populate a GIS field with any hydraulic parameter for all objects in the GIS file (eg automatically mapping maximum flood levels and hazards to all properties in the floodplain, including across large rural lots).

Interact between GIS fields and the hydraulic data to calculate derived data (eg depth above floor level, freeboard to floor level, how long until the low points on evacuation routes are reached, will critical infrastructure be operational? etc)

The GIS capabilities of waterRIDE™ FLOOD Manager allow model surfaces, georeferenced property data and corporate database systems to be read and combined automatically in the production of flood certificates.

Flood certificates use standard Microsoft Word templates with keywords for the automated insertion of relevant data.

The main aim of waterRIDE™ FLOOD Manager is to make flood data usable… by anyone. Essentially, this means anyone interested in, or needing to use flood model data in their role should find waterRIDE™ FLOOD Manager (or Viewer) valuable.

As this encompasses a very wide range of user types not all functionality will be applicable for all user types. The lists below provide an indication, through user feedback, of the features that each of the user types has found valuable.

waterRIDE™ FLOOD Viewer provides access to any waterRIDE™ project developed using waterRIDE™ FLOOD Manager. Users can view and interrogate model results (thematic surfaces, profile and time series plots etc) but are unable to change or edit the project (add views, new layers etc). The viewer cannot access any of the sophisticated processing tools (but can access the outputs of the tools). It provides an ideal means of sharing quality controlled flooding information across an organisation with minimal (or no) training requirements.

waterRIDE™ 1D Surface is required if 1D model results are to be used (excluding HEC-GeoRAS and the 1D component of TUFLOW, as these are converted directly to 2D).